Cambodia is hot. Cambodia is dusty. Cambodia is ORANGE. It is the dry season here so there is no rain, or even morning dew, to keep the dust down. So orange dirt has turned everything a kind of dusty orange. Literally EVERYTHING I own in covered in a healthy layer of orange dust (even inside the house)!
More than anything else though, I will remember that I have been continually happy and at peace here in Cambodia.
This month my teammates and I have been in a small, very new town called Preah Vihear. It has only been here for 7 years and it shows. The market is small and basically all open air. Everything closes down around 7pm. As we walk through the market people stop to stare at us. Everywhere we go we are followed by shouts of “hello!” (The only English word most of them know lol.) We feel a little like celebrities but also a little like a strange looking animal at the zoo.
We have been staying at a small orphanage/church called Refuge New Hope Cambodia. We basically live with the pastor, his family, and the 30 orphans (also 3 pigs, several ducks, and so many chickens running around that I couldn’t keep count). It has been exhausting, irritating, loud, fun, and amazing all in turn.
The orphanage is understaffed and underfunded. The kids are cared for and loved as best as the pastor can manage but they are starved for one on one attention. Every time we sit down to rest we get mobbed by kids wanting to sit in our laps or hang all over us. Even as I write this, I am having to shoo little hands from helping me type lol.
We have split our time between teaching English to the kids, visiting and praying with church members in the village, painting and cleaning up around the orphanage, and, of course, playing with the kids. It’s been an interesting month for our team to get to know each other. Each individual seems to have different ideas and priorities when it comes to ministry. We have all had to let go of some expectations and have learned a lot about trusting God, our hosts, and our each other in the process.
In all, Cambodia has been exactly what we needed. We have been provided the safety and stretching needed to encourage us all to grow indivudually, and as a team. Refuge New Hope Cambodia seemed a very fitting name for us as well as the many others this minitry has reached out to. God is so good that way.
